California in the Summer

It's cold. And cloudy. I haven't seen the sun since I left Minneapolis on Thursday. And, I'll be honest, I didn't really see it then since I left Minneapolis before the sun had decided to rise.

Regardless.....here I am on the California coast. Beautiful Monterey Bay! Which looks less like this:

And more like this:

To be fair, it's still the ocean, and therefore still pretty great, and I expected the cold, but when I leave the upper midwest and a state notorious for cold and come to the Pacific coast of California, it's still a bit of a conceptual anomaly to know that Minneapolis is currently having a sunny, hot, humid day while the weather along the beaches of California is cloudy and in the 60s.

It's been a good trip, though I had this weird moment this morning while standing on the beach watching the tide come in where I just sort of really wanted to go back home. I was talking to B on the phone and he was complaining about how hot and humid it was and I just sort of said......"I really miss home. I want to come home. That's stupid. I'm standing here looking at the Pacific Ocean and all I'm thinking about is how I can't wait to come back to the stupid upper midwest." But, I guess, you feel how you feel. Or something. And honestly, this traveling was really fun at first, but I think it's starting to wear on me. And I haven't traveled since March, but even then I remember thinking how good it was to be home.....after being in the Rocky Mountains...one of my other favorite places in the country. Stupid. And weird. And maybe I don't hate Minnesota as much as I think I do. Or maybe I just love B that much. I told him that after I said my earlier piece. I ended it with "You hear that, I love you more than the ocean." And then we laughed.

Ok, but I don't want to get all sappy. I wanted to tell you about California.

Here are some highlights of things I've done.

• I went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. They have penguins and sea turtles and sharks and rays and tuna and awesome.
• I walked around Cannery Row. It looks like every other tourist street along an oceanfront that I've ever seen.
• I saw sea lions and harbor seals hanging out on the rocks in the bay.
• I got hit in the head by a pigeon. I'm not going to explain that.
• I hung out with some people and had a bonfire on the beach next to the ocean last night.
• I learned how to open a beer bottle with a lighter.
• I saw some really inspiring sessions about what people are doing with GIS and conservation. The one in particular that I want to highlight is from Columbus, Ohio. It's a project by the Ohio Audubon Society to restore an old brownfield in a high-crime area of Columbus to awesome habitat for birds using volunteer labor and students from charter schools. They also went on a crusade against honeysuckle in the city of Columbus and contacted landowners of parcels where they identified honeysuckle in order to get them to remove these plants from their yards. It's an inspirational and amazing story. If I ever find myself in Columbus again, I will go visit their center. Here's a link: http://grange.audubon.org/Support.html

And that's California so far. One more day, and then I will head out tomorrow morning. Everyone was right about one thing......this is one of the best conferences I've ever attended. I'm going to try to come back. Because I love conservation and GIS.